Claire was all courage, to the core. Just not the kind of courage that hit things.
“I think you are stronger than you know,” Goldman said, and leaned forward now, watching me intently as I sat back down on the couch. “And much smarter than anyone gives you credit. I will make you this deal. We can sit for the rest of the hour in silence, if you wish, and I will say that you are progressing with your therapy. Or you can speak. It’s your choice. I won’t ask you again.”
It was a long ten minutes before I finally said, pushing the words out against an overwhelming weight, “It was how she looked at him.”
“At who?”
“At her boss. Crazy-ass Myrnin. I saw her looking at him, and he was looking at her, and it was—” I shook my head. “Nothing, it was nothing.” No, that wasn’t true—I was lying out loud. Worse, I was trying to lie to myself. “She likes him. Maybe even loves him, in a crazy-uncle kind of way.”
“You think she doesn’t love you?”
“That’s not the point. She can’t love him.”
“Because he is a vampire?”
“Yes!”
“You said before that she loves him like an uncle. Do you believe it is more than that?”
“Not from her,” I said. “From him . . . yeah, maybe.”
“How did it make you feel, knowing that?”
What a shrink question. “Lost,” I said. That surprised me, but it was true. “I felt lost. And angry.”
“At Claire.”
I didn’t answer that one, because it was too scary. I could not be angry at Claire; I just couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault, any of this; she was a loving person, and that was part of why I loved her, too.
So why did it hurt so much to think that she might smile at Myrnin, love him even a little bit?
Because he’s a vampire. No, because you want her to be all yours.
“Have you considered,” Goldman said, “that the reason the vampire Gloriana found it so easy to release that anger inside you to make you fight is that you so rarely confront it?”
“What the hell does that mean—is it shrink code for yell and break stuff and act like a douche bag? Because I’ve already done all that.” More often than I liked to admit, even to myself. “I’m all about confrontation.”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled. It made him look kindly and twinkly and likable, which sucked, because vampires weren’t supposed to look that way. “You most certainly have that behavior down. But what about talking honestly with Claire? Have you done that?”
Had I? I talked to her, sure—every day. And sometimes we talked about how we felt, but it was surface stuff, even if it was true. “No,” I said. The pressure inside me lightened up, weirdly enough. I no longer wanted to punch something to get rid of it. “I mean, she knows I don’t like the guy. . . .”
“Have you told her, explicitly, how you see her relationship with Myrnin, and how it makes you feel?”
That was an easy one. “No.” Hell no.
He was still smiling, all grandfatherly and very slightly amused. “Because strong men don’t do such things, yes?”
No shit, Sherlock.
“What if I told you that being honest with her, deeply honest, would make her love you even more?”
That was utter crap. If Claire knew me, really knew me, knew all the toxic muck that was sludged up inside me, she’d get the hell away from me, no question about it. I shook my head, not even meaning to do it.
Goldman sighed. “Very well, then,” he said. “Baby steps. At least you’ve admitted it to me. We have at least another two months left together. I consider this a very fine start.” He glanced down at his watch. “And I believe that it’s time for my next appointment. Very good work, Mr. Collins.”
I shot out of the couch like it had an ejection seat, and had my hand on the doorknob when he said, “One more thing, if you don’t mind: I’d like to assign you some homework.”
“Yeah, ’cause that never gets old,” I said, but I was already resigned to doing a searching moral inventory, or whatever psychobabble crap he was about to pull out of his dusty immortal bag of tricks.
He surprised me. “I’d like you to try, for the next twenty-four hours, to solve any problem that arises without allowing your anger free rein. If you’re presented with an opportunity to fight, I’d like you to back down. If someone tries to verbally engage you, defuse the situation. If you’re insulted, walk away. Just for twenty-four hours. Then you can engage in fisticuffs to your heart’s content.”
I turned and stared at him. “I have actually gone a whole day without punching somebody, you know. Sometimes even two days.”
“Yes, but you channel your anger in other ways, smaller ones you may not even realize. Perhaps by thinking hard about it, you may realize how much you allow it to drive your actions and shape the world around you.” He nodded then. “That’s all. Just try it, for one full day. I’ll be interested to hear how it feels.”
I shrugged and opened the door. “Sure, Doc. No problem.”